


Scales

by willow_larkspur



Series: Fantasy February [16]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Attempted Murder, BAMF Amelia Bones, BAMF Susan Bones, Character Death, Child Abuse, Different Response to the Letters, Gen, Jewish Boneses, Rescued Harry, Supra
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-17
Updated: 2021-02-17
Packaged: 2021-03-15 09:42:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 979
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29806515
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/willow_larkspur/pseuds/willow_larkspur
Summary: Harry has a natural talent which results in him forming scales to save him from danger. But when Vernon decided to just eliminate the freak instead of trying to outrun the letters from no one, it wasn't his scales that saved him. It was another magical child.
Relationships: Harry Potter & The Dursleys, Harry Potter & the Boneses
Series: Fantasy February [16]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2141499
Kudos: 23
Collections: MC4A Year 3





	Scales

**Author's Note:**

> Legal Disclaimer: I own my stuff, but not the original source material. That belongs to whoever. Also, the opinions and interpretations I use here may not reflect the same in said whoever that owns the source material. Look, I’m just a poor college librarian. Suing me isn’t going to get you anything but tears.  
> Warning: This work may be offensive to some readers. Feel free to back out if need be.  
> Author’s Note: So how is everyone’s polar vortex going?

(^^)  
 **Scales**  
(^^)

Harry had always made sure that he didn’t do it around anyone else. It wasn’t like the other things that the Dursleys had accused of doing over the years. It couldn’t be explained as something that someone else had done or some completely inexplicable fluke of nature. This wasn’t a teacher’s hair turning blue while she was yelling at him or an ugly jumper shrinking before Aunt Petunia could force Harry to wear it.

These were tiny copper scales that appeared whenever he was afraid or angry. Despite how delicate they looked, they were very resilient, fully capable of distributing the impact of blows and kicks. That was very useful whenever Harry wasn’t fast or clever enough to get away from Dudley and his gang during a game of Harry Hunting or if he had earned a punishment from Uncle Vernon.

Unfortunately, copper scales were easily spotted against his dark brown skin. If the Dursleys already punished him for freakish things that couldn’t be directly connected to him, how would they react to something that was undeniably connected to him? The punishments already hurt so much. Harry didn’t want to imagine it getting worse.

So he made sure that he didn’t bring them out around anyone else.

Then the letters started coming, and it didn’t matter how well he had hidden it.

In another world, the Dursleys might have burned all of the letters before going on a mad-dash holiday around England that ended in a rundown shack on a rock in the middle of a storm-tossed sea. It wouldn’t have been comfortable in any sense, but aside from a transfigured tail that needed to be surgically removed, everyone would have been physically fine. In that other world, Harry would be taken from the Dursleys only for a day before left at a train station to make his own way back to Privet Drive.

In another world, Harry would never had broken free of people seeking to manipulate him. It might even have accumulated in him naming one of his children after two unapologetic abusers who had worked together to arrange his death. It would even have been considered a happy ending by some onlookers.

But that was not what happened in this world.

The Dursleys didn’t burn the letters when they kept coming despite prevention methods that they tried to implement. They didn’t all go on a road trip when they left Privet Drive. It was only Vernon Dursley and Harry that drove away under the cover of darkness. There was no delightful but cheap motel in Cokesworth that delivered a handful of letters alongside breakfast. Instead of ending up in a shack on a rock in the middle of the sea, Vernon drove inland after purchasing a long and slim package from a dodgy stranger near the docks.

When Vernon found a suitable roadway that went beneath a bridge, he parked the Dursley family car and ordered Harry to get out. Vernon took the package with him as he urged the trembling boy farther under the shadow cast by the bridge. Harry could feel the prickle of his scales wanting to appear. He could tell that it wouldn’t take much for him to lose control.

Uncle Vernon snapped at Harry to stop moving and face the stone wall of the bridge tunnel. Obedient as ever, Harry did. His stomach twisted as he heard the plain brown wrapping being ripped away from what he knew to be the package. He closed his eyes in dread as he heard a sliding sound followed by a click. If this was the end, he would bear it with stoic countenance and hope it would be enough to make up for all the trouble he had caused with his short existence.

Then there was a roaring noise that might have been just the blood in his ears. Harry thought there might have been screaming but maybe he was just imagining that. A charred smell like burnt meat filled the air, too.

And then a pair of hands were on his shoulders, turning him from the gray view that he had been so certain would be his last. A red-haired girl who looked about his age was the one touching him. Her pretty blue eyes sparked with protective anger as she looked him over. He couldn’t hear the words that he could see her lips forming, but that might have been the shock of still being alive.

Eventually, she stopped speaking and simply pulled him along behind her until they got to nearby cottage, complete with garden. She took him into her home and introduced him to a woman wearing a monocle. There was a whirlwind of activity as the girl forced him to sit in a chair in a small kitchen and the woman did several things, including leaving with a group of people who seemed to have just appeared in the cottage’s garden.

Only later, when the shock had worn off did he learn that the girl’s name was Susan Bones, and she had saved him by using her natural talent for fire magic, a talent inherited from her deceased mother. Uncle Vernon had been about to kill Harry, which was such a common problem with Muggles raising magical children that none were supposed to be left with the Muggles after they had been discovered. Susan and her aunt both assured him that he was never going back to the Dursleys.

Late that night, Harry laid awake in the cottage’s guest room. He brought out his scales and stroked over them. He couldn’t help but wonder if he had gotten the scales from his mother the same way that Susan had gotten her fire from hers. It felt almost as much like a dream as still being alive or magic being real did.

Maybe he would know some day.

Maybe.

**Author's Note:**

> Submitting Info:  
> Stacked with: Hogwarts (Term 14); MC4A  
> Individual Challenges: Magical MC (x2); Claimed; Hold the Mayo; Lunar Era; Old Shoes (Y); Bucket Listing; Two Cakes (Y); Eating Cake (Y); Green Ribbon  
> House: Slytherin  
> Assignment No.: Term 14 – Assignment 03  
> Subject (Task No.): First Aid (Task#1: Write about someone trying to stop someone else from being harmed.)  
> Other Hogwarts Challenges: Yearly Scavenger Hunt [06](Same Character)[2]; 365 [01](Talent); Fantastic Beasts [205](Traveling a long distance); Fantasy Feb [Day 16](Natural Talent)  
> Other MC4A Challenges: WiB [3D](Childhood Home); Vocab [5B](Stoic); Chim [Karma](Copper); Fire [Hard](The Future);  
> Representation(s): Black Harry Potter  
> Primary & Secondary Bonus Challenges: n/a; Second Verse (Not a Lamp; Found Family); Chorus (Wabi Sabi)  
> Tertiary & Generic Bonus Challenges: DP (Taciturn)  
> Word Count: 978 words


End file.
